Overview
Silver Viper Minerals Corp. (TSXV:VIPR, OTCQB:VIPRF) is a mineral exploration company focused on the acquisition and advancement of high-quality, early-stage projects. The group aims to build value through discovery and deposit definition with the goal of attracting the interest of senior resource companies looking to acquire advanced mineral properties. Silver Viper establishes strict minimum thresholds for resource target size, ensuring that they make effective use of the company’s capital and deliver as much value as possible to its shareholders.
Silver Viper is currently focused on exploring and advancing the La Virginia gold-silver project in Sonora, Mexico. The project’s current form was achieved by the combination of two groups of claims acquired by the company. The first claims were acquired 100% from Pan American Silver Corp. (NASDAQ:PAAS,TSX:PAAS), which retains a royalty and right of the first offer on any deal should Silver Viper successfully define an economic deposit. The second group is internal to the Pan American claims and Silver Viper has the right to earn 100% interest by way of an option agreement. The gold-silver exploration project has seen significant work in certain parts, though much of the mineralized trend remains untested. Historically reported high-grade findings from previous work include a 23.5-meter interval grading at 13.69 g/t gold equivalent.
In April 2022, Silver Viper advanced its exploration drilling at El Rubi and expansion of mapping and sampling coverage across the project area. Recent drilling was performed at the Paredones Zone on the eastern structural mineralized trend. Quantec Geoscience contractors completed data collection for a 31 line-kilometer magnetotelluric geophysical survey covering approximately 610 hectares (1,500 acres).
The Silver Viper management team has a proven ability to discover and develop quality exploration projects with large returns for their shareholders. The management team are members of the Belcarra Group, a team of industry professionals who have technical and capital markets experience in developing projects, including those associated with Orko Silver, Orex Minerals (TSXV:REX), Dolly Varden Silver Corp. (TSXV:DV) and Barsele Minerals (TSXV:BME). They have a strong history of entering agreements with major mining companies such as Pan American Silver Corp. (TSX:PAAS), Coeur Mining (NYSE:CDE), First Majestic Silver (NYSE:AG,TSX:FR,FWB:FMV), Fresnillo (LSE:FRES), Agnico Eagle (NYSE:AEM,TSX:AEM) and Hecla Mining Company (NYSE:HL).
Company Highlights
- La Virginia is an exploration property with a recent exploration history including approximately 52,000 meters of drilling over 188 drill holes.
- Publicly-reported drill tests at La Virginia reported findings as high as 23.5 meters of 13.69 g/t gold equivalent.
- Experienced technical and management team with proven ability to unlock value by developing projects through exploration.
- Management and institutional shareholders own ~60 percent and ~20 percent of the shares, respectively.
- In 2021, Silver Viper submitted an independent technical report supporting the maiden mineral resource estimate for its La Virginia Project.
- In 2022, the company, through Quantec Geoscience, completed a TITAN MT Deep-Penetrating geophysical survey at La Virginia.
Key Projects
La Virginia
In June 2018, Silver Viper entered into an option agreement with a syndicate of individual claim owners. The agreement gives Silver Viper the right to earn a 100% interest in the 2,102-hectare Rubi-Esperanza property for $4.5 million in staged, escalating payments over four years. To further consolidate the company’s land position, in December 2018 Silver Viper acquired the surrounding mineral claims and a proprietary dataset covering the previous drilling on Rubi-Esperanza from Pan American Silver. In June 2019, Silver Viper renegotiated its Rubi-Esperanza option agreement to purchase the three concessions that comprise the La Virginia project for a lesser amount and with an extra year to complete the payments. The two agreements form the current 35,598-hectare property which encompasses almost 40 kilometers of a prospective mineral trend.
The La Virginia property is located 220 kilometers east-northeast of Hermosillo in the
state of Sonora within the Sierra Madre Occidental. The property is also 100 kilometers north of the Dolores gold-silver operation and 90 kilometers south of the El Tigre gold-silver operation.
La Virginia exploration model
Historic exploration
There is evidence of small-scale underground mining in several locations on the property in the 1970s and totaled approximately 210 meters of underground development. However, the property was officially identified by Minefinders Corp. in 2007, during a regional targeting program.
Following a period of surface mapping and geochemical sampling, Minefinders initiated a drilling program from 2010 through to early 2013. Publicly available data is limited, though MD&A documents indicate that Minefinders spent as much as $3.5 million on 48 diamond drill holes totaling 15,686 meters in 2011 alone. Grades reported by Minefinders include 23.5 meters of 13.69 g/t gold equivalent and 15 meters of 6.14 g/t gold equivalent.
Minefinders was acquired by Pan American in January 2012, largely for the operating Dolores silver-gold mine. Minefinders drill-tested La Virginia during the acquisition process, with Pan Am continuing exploration drilling into early 2013. At the commencement of Silver Viper’s involvement, there were 188 diamond drill holes completed on the property.
Historical exploration work identified anomalous gold and silver mineralization in structures ranging numerous kilometers from known showings. Silver Viper has reviewed existing data on the project, including an overview of existing drill core and logging. The company is also conducting an ongoing regional reconnaissance survey on the greater claim area to identify prospective areas for follow-up exploration.
The drilling program was designed to provide several confirmation holes in areas of known mineralization and to test previously undrilled mineralized showings. Over the course of 2018, Silver Viper completed 4,753 meters of drilling over five prospect areas distributed along 11 kilometers of a structural trend, resulting in the discovery of the El Rubi and Con Virginia zones.
Ongoing exploration
In 2021, Silver Viper filed an independent technical report prepared in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. The NI 43-101 supports the maiden mineral resource estimate for its La Virginia Precious Metal Project. The 2021 mineral resource estimate showed a total indicated resource of 6.18 million tonnes with 154,300 oz of gold and 6.93 million oz of silver. The total inferred resource is at 10.10 million tonnes with 260,300 oz of gold and 12.94 million oz of silver.
To date, the company has completed its TITAN MT Deep-Penetrating Geophysical Survey. Silver Viper had engaged Quantec Geoscience to execute the survey centered on the El Rubi Deposit, Paredones and El Molino target areas.
The company continues all prospecting works along the El Rubi trend and the adjacent El Molino trend. Advance activities were conducted at the La Colmena, Paredones and El Molino South prospect areas. These early-stage prospects host outcroppings of silicified hydrothermal breccias and quartz veining, like breccias and veining seen in the El Rubi area. Other current work includes rock chip sampling and mapping.
The Silver Viper management team has a proven ability to discover and develop quality exploration projects with large returns for their shareholders as demonstrated by the discovery of Orko Silver Corp.’s La Preciosa silver-gold deposit in
Mexico, as well as the Barsele gold project in Sweden. They have a strong history of entering agreements in the past with major mining companies such as Pan American Silver, Coeur Mining, First Majestic Silver, Fresnillo, Agnico Eagle and Hecla.
Management Team
Gary Cope - Chairman
Gary Cope has accumulated over 33 years of experience in corporate management and strategy, with a specific emphasis on public company finance. He arranged financing for the South Kemess project and later became heavily involved with the negotiations and selling of the deposit to Royal Oak Mines. In the past 12 years, he has acted as a senior officer and director for various publicly held companies, such as St. Phillips Resources. Cope served as the president, CEO and director of Orko Silver Corp, and was instrumental in negotiating and arranging the sale of Orko Silver to Coeur d’Alenes Mine Corp in 2013. He currently holds those same positions with Orex Minerals Inc. and Barsele Minerals Corp.
Steve Cope - President, CEO and Director
Steve Cope has 12 years of experience in the mining sector. He has worked in corporate development for Orko Silver Corp, Barsele Minerals Inc., Orex Minerals Inc. and Timmins Gold Corp. His responsibilities with these companies have covered a wide range of areas including financing companies, project evaluation, investor relations and mergers and acquisitions.
Carla Hartzenberg - Chief Financial Officer and Director
Carla Hartzenberg, CPA, CA, is a chartered professional accountant with 10 years of experience primarily focused on the natural resources sector. She possesses significant experience in mining exploration, real estate, manufacturing and clean technology. She has held management positions in the resource sector as well as real estate. In addition, she gained extensive experience through a Canadian audit firm providing assurance services to publicly traded companies on the TSX, TSXV and OTC markets. She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Victoria.
Dale Brittliffe - Vice-president Exploration
Dale Brittliffe is a professional geologist with 20 years of experience in design and management of mineral exploration programs in Australia, Canada, Mexico and Brazil. He has particular expertise in identifying and upgrading early-stage projects and boasts a solid track record of successful stakeholder negotiations resulting in amicable and productive land access agreements. Based in Vancouver, he has eight years of experience managing exploration projects in northern Mexico and has previously completed such work for Kootenay Silver, Astral Mining and Orex Minerals Inc. He holds a Bachelor of Applied Geology degree from Curtin University of Western Australia and a Bachelor of Science (Environmental) degree from the University of Western Australia.
Directors
Art Freeze - Director
Art Freeze has an impressive 45 years of experience in mineral exploration and project management. Until 2007, he served as the primary consulting geologist for Goldcorp Inc. and has held consulting, management and supervisory positions with international mining companies such as Cominco Ltd, Pasminco Exploration, Echo Bay Mines and Pan American Silver Corp. He is a member of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia (APEGBC) and was a consulting geologist and advisory board member for Orko Silver Corp.
Ross Wilmot - Director
Ross Wilmot is a chartered accountant who has provided public companies with senior financial management services for more than 20 years. He offers exhaustive knowledge of reporting practices and requirements for public companies based in Canada and the United States. Wilmot has been involved in numerous business valuations and acquisitions, high-tech start-ups and international mining operations.
Australia
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